State-owned companies may be driving global deal-making for China, but across emerging economies in the Asian region, much of the merger-and-acquisition activity is being spurred by billionaire-controlled companies.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Indian generic drug maker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries is in talks to buy Sweden’s Meda for as much as $5 billion. Sun Pharma recently was also in the running to buy contact lens company Bausch & Lomb, but lost out to Valeant, whose winning bid was $8.7 billion.

The Mumbai-based company is one of India’s largest drug makers, founded in 1982 by Dilip Shanghvi. Sun is publicly traded and its soaring stock market performance has made Shanghvi India’s fifth-richest man, according to Forbes. He’s also 116th on the magazine’s 2013 list of billionaires, with a net worth of $9.4 billion.

Shanghvi is among a crop of Asian tycoons chasing ambitious deals outside their home markets. So far this year, M&A involving companies in the Asia-Pacific region stands at $220 billion, already close to the $236 billion volume seen last year, according to Dealogic.

Another deal announced this week — Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International’s $4.7 billion plan to buy U.S. pork producer Smithfield — had an Asian billionaire angle. Thai agribusiness conglomerate Charoen Pokphand, controlled by Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, had also taken a look at Smithfield, but ultimately decided to pull out because a deal looked too expensive.

Chearavanont has a net worth of $14.3 billion according to Forbes, and is Thailand’s richest man. Earlier this year, Chearavanont bought 15% of Chinese insurer Ping An from HSBC. The billionaire also offered $6.6 billion for a local discount-store chain in April, with plans to expand the chain across Southeast Asia and even Pakistan and China.

These big M&A moves follow a battle between Asian tycoons last year for control of Singaporean real estate and beverage giant Fraser & Neave. Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhananbhakdi got into a bidding war for the company with Stephen Riady, a Singapore-based businessman with roots in Indonesia, and eventually won with an $11 billion offer this year.

Meanwhile, one of Indonesia’s richest families, the Bakries, has been involved in a long-running dispute with British financier Nat Rothschild over control of Bumi, a FTSE-listed company with interests in Indonesia’s largest coal-producing assets.